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Jack Smith’s ‘Star Witness’ Mike Pence Tells Audience in Indiana He Doesn’t Want to Talk About ‘News of the Day’

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Former Vice President Mike Pence, struggling to make the cut for the first Republican presidential debate later this month, told a small audience in his home state of Indiana he does not want to “talk about the news of the day,” an apparent reference to the third and most consequential indictment of his former boss, Donald Trump, this time for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

On Tuesday Pence released a statement on the indictment, mentioning Trump just one time, near the end.

“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States. I will have more to say about the government’s case after reviewing the indictment. The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions. As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden’s disastrous economic policies afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter.”

“Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career. On January 6th, Former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will. As your president, I will not yield an inch in defending America, our people, or our values, and I promise you: I will do so in a way consistent with my oath to the Constitution and the character and decency of the American people. We will restore a threshold of integrity and civility in public life so we can bring real solutions to the challenges plaguing our nation.”

READ MORE: Hugh Hewitt Slammed After Major Meltdown Declaring Trump Indictment ‘Ought to Be Vomited Out’ of Court

Tuesday night MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell declared Pence will be Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “star witness,” and pointed to three words quoted in the Trump indictment: “You’re too honest.” O’Donnell and others have said that quote “obviously” came from Pence.

Foreign policy, national security and political affairs expert David Rothkopf also called Pence Jack Smith’s “star witness,” but added, “he will never be a hero. He enabled as much or more bad behavior than he opposed. We can be grateful for what he did on Jan 6 & apparently his notes & someday his testimony, but still see the totality of his weak, failed tenure.”

Pence appears to have solidified his campaign focus, promising to reduce inflation despite it having dropped dramatically to just 3%, from over 9% a year ago, under President Biden’s “Bidenomics.”

At the Indiana State Fair on Wednesday Pence spent about 25 minutes talking mostly about the economy, including the price of eggs.

“Last week I actually became the first Republican candidate for president to actually lay out a plan for how we tackle inflation,” Pence told the small crowd.

He also promised a “conversation” about “the real drivers of federal spending,” which he said “frankly is entitlements: Social Security and Medicare.”

Despite having been a U.S. Congressman, a state governor, and the Vice President, Pence has failed to make inroads. Seven Republicans including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, have qualified to appear on stage on August 23 for the first GOP presidential debate. Pence “has met the polling threshold but has yet to amass a sufficient number of donors, raising the possibility that he might not qualify for the party’s first debate,” the Associated Press reported this week.

Watch a short clip of Pence’s remarks below or at this link.

 

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Closer to Russia, Closer to Trump: US Official Says Alliances Are Shifting

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A top Trump official says global power alliances are shifting, observing that nations closest to Russia are now increasingly aligned with President Donald Trump’s interests.

Fox News host Martha MacCallum told Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum that she had spoken with President Trump earlier Friday, “and he basically said that Japan is a better ally to the United States than NATO, which, when you look at the big picture in history, is a pretty stunning statement.”

She also asked the secretary, “do you think that our orientation, in terms of our alliances, is changing?”

“Well, clearly, it is,” Burgum replied.

“What we might consider our traditional allies from Europe have been less than reliable,” he said, “and from the time that we’ve spent working with those folks in Eastern Europe, the closer they are to Russia, the more aligned they are with President Trump, and the more … aligned they are on energy policy.”

READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House

Offering Japan as an example, Burgum said that nation “is 120 million people living in the size of an area of North Dakota, and they’ve got complete dependence on foreign energy. They want to buy energy from the United States.”

He explained that it takes eight days by ship from Anchorage to Tokyo, as opposed to 30 days from the Middle East.

“People are desperate to have the stronger relationship with the United States right now on energy,” he claimed.

President Trump’s policies are “absolutely working to build alliances around the world,” Burgum said.

MacCallum noted that “the alliance seems to be the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Japan have a good relationship with us as well right now, and a lot of repair needed in Europe.”

READ MORE: Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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‘Down There With the Titanic’: Fetterman Has Historic Polling Swing Says Analyst

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Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman has suffered a historic collapse in support, plunging 108 points among Pennsylvania Democrats from his strong standing just three years ago.

The Pennsylvania lawmaker, who often appears on Fox News and has accused Democrats of having “Trump derangement syndrome,” enjoyed a positive 68 percent approval rating in 2023, his first year in office.

Now, he stands at a negative 40 percent, according to CNN analyst Harry Enten.

“John Fetterman is doing as well with Pennsylvania Democrats as the New York Giants are liked in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Enten said on Friday, while noting that in 2023, Fetterman was a “Democrat liberal darling.”

READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House

Now, Enten says, Fetterman is “down there with the Titanic.”

Enten compared Fetterman to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who he says is “not well liked by the Democratic base nationwide.”

Schumer’s popularity rating is about minus two points.

Leader Schumer “is 38 points more popular than John Fetterman is with Pennsylvania Democrats.

Enten also compared Fetterman to several senators who were unpopular and lost their primaries.

“His net popularity with his own party is worse than all senators who lost a primary this century,” Enten noted online.

READ MORE: Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready

“He is below the lowest,” Enten said. “The ones who actually got beat in a primary. There is no historical analog to this. That is how unpopular John Fetterman is with Pennsylvania Democrats.”

If Fetterman runs for re-election in 2028, what happens?

“There is basically no doubt in my mind that if Fetterman decides to run for re-election as a Democrat, he will face a primary challenge and it will be a very competitive one,” said Enten.

“The bottom line is this: John Fetterman, when you look, when you look at his net popularity rating, minus 40 points, he’s on a completely other planet from Chuck Schumer, who is also unpopular, and he is on a different galaxy entirely from other incumbents who actually lost re-election — far less popular than them.”

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think She Survives This’: Gabbard Faces Blowback After ‘Devastating’ Testimony

 

Image: Public Domain

 

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Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready

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George Conway, once a leading Never-Trump Republican and now a Democratic congressional candidate, has issued a stark warning, saying that Americans remain perilously unprepared for President Donald Trump’s potential interference in November’s election.

Conway, who founded the Anti-Psychopath PAC, said in a video posted on Friday that Trump’s “brain is mush, and he says, with conviction, things that he said the opposite of five minutes before or five days before.”

He says that Trump “has the capacity to declare that the polls are fake — and that if an election goes the same way that the polls do, well, that’s fake, too, and that’s why we need to ignore an election, and that’s why we need the voter rolls.”

READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House

But Conway warns that despite what happened on January 6, 2021, the American public is not ready for what Trump could do to the 2026 election.

“I don’t think people are sufficiently prepared, notwithstanding what happened in 2021, for the possibility that he will try to f — — with this election. And he will.”

“I mean, he’s already basically telling us that’s what he’s gonna do, just the same way he told us he would do that in 2020.”

READ MORE: Trump Re-Endorses Congressman He Dumped — Then Dangles Job to His Rival

Conway warns, “I don’t think truth means anything to him.”

Trump, he adds, “doesn’t care about the distinction between truth and lies. And so, does he know he’s lying? It doesn’t matter to him. Truth has no meaning to him. All that has any meaning to him in any given moment is whether or not he’s receiving praise or adulation, or some kind of a reward — like money, or a peace prize.”

“And what comes out of his mouth is whatever is in his head at the moment that he wants to believe or he wants other people to believe,” Conway says. “He’s divorcing himself from reality because he thinks he can create his own reality and the great megalomaniacs of history have always done that.”

Trump is in a “very dangerous place psychologically,” says Conway,”and he is a man, don’t forget — he talked about nuclear weapons the other day — he’s got 5,500 nuclear weapons.”

“He’s gonna trash everything once and for all,” Conway warns.

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think She Survives This’: Gabbard Faces Blowback After ‘Devastating’ Testimony

 

Image by Presia Debauch via Flickr and a CC license

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